Systematics Collections Data

Help

This section briefly explains some of the main functions provided by Systematics Collections Data.

Main functions

Search

Systematics Collections Data provides a search across all fields without restriction. The search​ provide the ability to find records using simple term searches (e.g., for a word) or more complex field and syntax searches.

A simple search will search for any words provided across all fields and return records that contain those words within the record content. 

A more complex search can be defined to limit a search to specific fields as well as allowing for ranges, negative and other more complex searches.  Please refer to Search syntax for more details on the fields and syntax options that are available.

Results

Search results are presented in three tabs:

There are different options for viewing the results depending on the tab view.

Records can be selected using the checkbox to the left of each result. You need to Log in / Sign up to be able to download data or add records to a set.
Note: Currently we recommend that you only select up to 10,000 records at one time.

Facets/Filters

Facets appear once a search has been completed. Click on a value within a facet to apply that value to the search results as a filter. Once a filter has been applied it will be listed in the Selected filters section which can be found above the Facets list. Clicking on the applied filter in the Selected filters section will clear that filter from the current search.

Filters are applied one at a time. It is possible to apply more than one value from the same filter.

Log in / Sign up

Sign up enables you to log in to SCD to access some additional features. These features include the ability to:

  • create and save sets of records that can be retrieved at a later time
  • download data
  • request a higher level of access to records via the SCD portal
  • submit requests for borrowing specimens or purchasing cultures
    Note: loan services and the purchase of cultures is normally restricted to individuals at recognised institutions and are subject to the terms and conditions established by each collection.

Add selected records to a set

Sets provide a quick way for obtaining the search result or record you are currently viewing for later re-use.

Download data

SCD provides the ability to download data from the search results or from saved sets of specimens. Depending on the type of record(s) you are viewing different data standards and formats are available. The download format can either be Specimens Examined or TSV (tab-separated values) file.

Please refer to the Help in your preferred spreadsheet program to find out how to open a TSV file as a spreadsheet. When downloading TSV files to a spreadsheet, please use UTF-8 encoding. We recommend importing ISO dates as a string into spreadsheets.

Note: Currently we recommend that you keep downloads to less than 30,000 records. Please also keep in mind that, depending on your internet connection, downloading large data sets may take a few minutes.